Consumers demand more morals on the menu

LONDON - Food groups such as Nestle and Sara Lee Corp face growing pressure from consumers to guarantee farmers in poor countries a better deal, says the head of a so-called ethical coffee scheme.

Consumers also want to know where their food comes from and that it is produced without damage to the environment.

"There is ever more focus on transparency in food chains. Consumers expect companies to know where their products come from and how they are made," Utz Kapeh Executive Director David Rosenberg told Reuters.

"They trust a brand. They are buying the relationship buyers have with producers. Consumers can be lazy but they can also be unforgiving when they find you have abused that relationship," he added.

Rosenberg was previously director of corporate responsibility for six years at Dutch retailer Ahold, the world's No 4 food retail group in sales terms.

Sara Lee roaster Douwe Egberts is in talks with the Netherlands-based Utz Kapeh to increase the coffee bought under its certification scheme so it can launch a product for the UK retail market, where demand for food products guaranteeing certain social and environmental production standards is growing fast.

Sara Lee will triple its use of Utz Kapeh coffee to 7.5 million kg, or 10 per cent, of its coffee purchases this year.

"They found it difficult to make credible claims about what they were doing in origin, and with Utz Kapeh they can," Rosenberg said.

Nestle, the world's largest food group, entered the ethical coffee market earlier this month with a ground coffee certified by the Fairtrade Organisation for the UK retail market.

Farms selling coffee under the Utz Kapeh scheme have to meet certain criteria on areas such as labour rights and environmental sustainability. Buyers can then assure their customers they can trace the beans back to origin.

Fairtrade certification means farmers receive a minimum guaranteed price and a premium, whatever the fluctuations of the world coffee market, whereas Utz Kapeh leaves producers and buyers to negotiate a price, which included an average premium of $0.04 cents a pound in 2004.

Rosenberg said that in the long term such certification schemes will probably consolidate as farmers learn to diversify.

"We see in Central America and Peru lots of producers trying to figure out a way to get the maximum bang for their certification buck, looking for synergies in the auditing and integrated systems that can be used for different certification schemes," he said.

Other coffee giants such as Kraft Foods Inc and Procter & Gamble Co have also bowed to demand from ethically aware consumers and sell some coffee certified by Rainforest Alliance, which focuses on environmental protection on farms.

- REUTERS